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Endurance
"We must confront the reality of interstellar travel." The Endurance is the interplanetary spacecraft built by NASA as part of Project Endurance. It is the ship that carries Cooper, Amelia, Doyle, Romilly, CASE, and TARS on their voyage through the wormhole to a system ten-billion light-years from Earth, near the black hole Gargantua, located in a distant galaxy. The primary goal of the Endurance is to find, rescue, and resupply the few marooned scientists of the previous Lazarus missions in addition to establishing a permanent colony on a suitable planet that could sustain human life. The Endurance is the product of a much-earlier NASA project to produce a viable, long-range, high-efficiency, interplanetary spaceship. It was designed to be self-sustaining for several decades, enabling it to prolong crew life for a protracted mission period. After the arrival of the blight, mankind no longer could afford such excesses as space exploration, and NASA was moved into the underground NORAD facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They continued their work in secret for the next several years. The facility's underground launch systems - originally meant for nuclear weapons - were perfect for conducting a secret space program, aimed at saving mankind. Thus, work on Project Endurance continued in secrecy. The ship was slowly constructed piece-by-piece in orbit around the Earth, using expendable boosters derived from Project Saturn and the Space Launch System. The latest advancements in aerospace and space exploration - such as the Ranger and the Lander- were incorporated into it. With the reduced capacity of NASA, the ship took years to complete. With the discovery of the wormhole in orbit around Saturn, the design was repurposed for an unprecedented interstellar expedition. The goal of this expedition was two-fold: # Travel through the wormhole and locate any of the twelve astronauts of Project Lazarus via radio beacon and evaluate their locations as potential sites for an off-world base. # Establish a base on the most likely candidate world capable of supporting human life, utilizing one of two plans: ## PLAN A: If a candidate is found while the Endurance still possesses sufficient fuel and resources to journey back through the wormhole to Earth, establish a small operating base on the planet and return to Earth to mount a worldwide colonization effort. By the time they return, NASA scientists were certain to have worked out the gravitational equations necessary to make such an effort possible. In addition, it was expected that the Earth's population would dwindle to a mere fraction of its current size, leaving fewer people to evacuate the planet. If the ship cannot return: ## PLAN B: Use the full resources of Endurance to establish a permanent colony. Using a gene bank of fertilized human eggs aboard the ship, begin developing and raising incipient humans upon the planet in order to prevent the extinction of mankind. The chosen crew included Dr. Brand, daughter of physicist John Brand, scientists Doyle and Romilly, and military surplus support robots TARS and CASE, the latter being left aboard the ship while it was in orbit. With the reappearance of Joseph Cooper, the astronaut who was part of the original Ranger test flights, the mission found its pilot. After boarding the Endurance and getting her ready for the journey, the crew would hibernate in hypersleep pods for the two-year stretch out to Saturn where the wormhole was discovered. The ship conducted a sling-shot burn around Mars to pick up speed for the trip. The Wormhole The ship crossed through the wormhole, carrying its crew ten-billion light-years across space to the orbit of Gargantua. There, they picked up the radio transmissions of three of the Lazarus astronauts: Dr. Laura Miller, Dr. Wolf Edmunds, and Dr. Mann, the leader of Project Lazarus. All three signals indicated that their respective planets held promise. Due to the ship's exit vector from the wormhole, the planet with the nearest and most-efficient intercept course was planet Miller. Unfortunately, the planet was very close to the event horizon of Gargantua, meaning that the time dilation on the planet's surface was over 60,000:1 - one hour on or near the planet's surface equated to 7 years on Endurance as well as back on Earth. However, if they bypassed Miller and tried to return to it later, the ship would have used up too much fuel to possibly return to Earth. To combat the time dilation, Cooper suggested that the Endurance not enter Miller's orbit, but rather stay out far beyond Gargantua where the time dilation was negligible. They would take a Ranger down to the planet, survey it, and return to the ship as soon as possible. Even so, it would likely be the better part of a decade before they returned. Cooper, Brand, Doyle, and CASE took Ranger 1 down to Miller, while Romilly stayed aboard the Endurance with TARS to work on his theories and equations. Planet Miller The crew of Ranger 1 was down on Miller for the equivalent of twenty-three years. They discovered that the planet was entirely lifeless and uninhabitable. They also found the wreckage of Dr. Miller's ship, destroyed by the kilometer-high waves caused by Gargantua's tidal forces. By her frame of reference, she had only died a few minutes ago. The "all-good" signal NASA received from her was simply a repeat of her initial transmission upon reaching the planet. The crew barely avoided being destroyed the same way, and Doyle was lost in the process. When they returned to find how much time had passed, they discovered that the Endurance had spent too many of its supplies in the twenty-three years they were down on Miller. Romilly had spent several years of that time in stretches of hypersleep, but had still aged a considerable number of years outside of hibernation. The ship could not travel to the other two worlds and still have enough to return to Earth. In an effort to preserve the potential of Plan A, as well as heated debate among the surviving crew, they elected to travel to Mann. Planet Mann Arriving at Mann, the crew found Dr. Mann in cryogenic suspension, his ship's power supplies dwindled down to almost nothing. However, his findings showed promise: while the upper part of the planet was a frozen, ammonia-thick wasteland, the surface was relatively warm and even showed the promise of organic life. The crew remained on the planet while CASE began using Lander 2 ''to bring supplies down from the ''Endurance. Dr. Mann's information was eventually discovered to be a lie; the planet was an entirely uninhabitable, poisonous, dead rock. Dr. Mann concocted the ruse to lure the rescue mission to his planet and thus save himself. He turned his robot, KIPP, into a time-bomb that eventually killed Romilly. He even stranded Cooper in the wasteland with a broken face-plate. He then stole Ranger 1 and returned to Endurance. Brand and CASE used Lander 2 to rescue Cooper and, after collecting TARS, chased him back to orbit. Dr. Mann did not know the proper docking sequence for the Endurance, and thus did not achieve a perfect seal with the airlock. Upon opening the Ranger's docking hatch, the explosive decompression killed him, destroying Ranger 1 and two of the ship's modules, crippling Endurance and sending her plummeting out of orbit and into planet Mann's atmosphere. Using Lander 2, Cooper - with the help of TARS and CASE - were able to line the shuttle up and stop Endurance's orbital decay. They managed to save the ship, but it was now entirely impossible to return to Earth. They could not even reach planet Edmunds under their own power. Endurance was crippled beyond repair and missing one of its four propulsion modules, falling into Gargantua's gravity well. The only chance was to attempt a slingshot around Gargantua, planned by Cooper. The Slingshot Using Ranger 2 piloted by Cooper and Lander 1 piloted by TARS as rocket booster, they pushed the Endurance below the critical orbit of the black hole, gaining enough speed to intercept Edmunds' planet. The maneuver was so close to Gargantua the gravitational time dilation made 51 years pass on Earth within a few minutes, relative time. On the outward journey, TARS ejected in the now-spent Lander 1 to allow for the Endurance to shed enough mass to escape. Cooper tactfully decided not to tell Brand that their wasn't enough fuel to carry Ranger 2 and therefore himself, to Edmunds. Cooper ejected with TARS and both fell into the black hole. CASE piloted Endurance on to Edmunds where Brand would set up the permanent colony in line with Plan B. Once at the planet, Brand and CASE used Lander 2 to retrieve two landing pods from the Endurance to create a permanent settlement on Edmunds. Brand and Case discover that Wolf Edmunds had perished in a rock slide while in his hypersleep chamber 77 years prior. Brand was the last living human being in that galaxy save the frozen embryos preserved in the ship's gene bank. She pressed on to repopulate mankind on the surface of Edmunds and complete the mission. Final Status of the Rescue Mission and Crew Project Lazarus * Mission Leader Dr. Hugh Mann - DECEASED - Killed in orbit around planet Mann by explosive decompression of Ranger 1. KIPP - DESTROYED - Rendered inactive when cannibalized by Dr. Mann to power his hypersleep pod. Destroyed when booby-trapped mainframe exploded, His last words was "There is a moment" (Lazarus 4) * Dr. Laura Miller - DECEASED - Killed when a massive tidal wave destroyed her habitation pod on the surface of planet Miller. * Dr. Wolf Edmunds - DECEASED - Killed by a rock slide on planet Edmunds that impaled his hyper sleep pod and buried his shuttle. (Lazarus 12) * Dr. Edward Hale - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Lee - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Morin - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Oita - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Ostro - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Pila - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Somov - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Henry Yashin - DECEASED. (M.I.A) * Dr. Wong - DECEASED. (M.I.A) Project Endurance * Mission Commander Dr. Amelia Brand - ALIVE - Survived the slingshot of the Endurance around Gargantua and set up permanent colony on planet Edmunds. * Mission Pilot Joseph Cooper - ALIVE - Recovered near the wormhole in orbit around Saturn by the Rangers from Cooper Station. * Science Specialist Doyle - DECEASED - Killed by a massive tidal wave on planet Miller, His last words was "Shit!". * Science Specialist Romilly - DECEASED - Killed in an explosion on planet Mann by the booby-trapped KIPP, His last words was "This data makes no sense". * Robot TARS - ACTIVE - Inactive when recovered by the Rangers in orbit around Saturn. Reactivated by Cooper aboard Cooper Station. * Robot CASE - ACTIVE - Piloted Endurance to planet Edmunds and aided Dr. Brand in establishing a colony. Design The Endurance is a modular ship composed several boxy mission modules connected by tunnels, arranged in a ring 64 meters in diameter. The ring-like shape of the ship is made so that it can rotate to produce artificial gravity. It rotates at 5.6 rpm to produce centrifugal force that simulates Earth's gravity for the astronauts. Modules There are twelve modules in the ship's design, each with its own purpose: * Four of the modules serve as the main propulsion system of the Endurance, each mounting three high-efficiency, high-thrust plasma engines that propel the ship. * Eight of the modules carry sixteen detachable cargo pods, intended to be ferried down to a planetary surface by the Landers to create a settlement. * Two of the modules serve as crew habitats, with sleeping quarters, consumables, and air and water recycling systems. * One module is the cryogenic bay, with the hypersleep pods for crew hibernation. This module also serves as the ship's sick bay. * The last module is the command module of Endurance, containing the cockpit, communications equipment, meeting room, and navigational systems. The command module has linkages that travel to the docking collar, permitting the ship to be piloted by an attached support craft. Drive System The Endurance is propelled by a series of twelve advanced magneto plasma rocket engines. The engines produce a distinctive blue exhaust plume of ionized gas when firing. The even spacing of the rockets permits the ship to accelerate and maneuver even while rotating to produce pseudo-gravity through angular momentum. Docking Hubs/Support Craft The Endurance has a central/core docking hub that can mount six of its support craft at one time. The Endurance also has four side module docking ports which can only be docked to by Rangers. These side ports are easier to dock to instead of the Central hub ports when the ship is facing upwards over the atmosphere orbiting around a planet, when needing to dock quickly. Overall, the ship has a total of 11 docking ports. The Endurance ''carries two Rangers and two Landers for a high degree of redundancy Rangers are fast and aerodynamic scouting vessels, while the Landers are used to ferry cargo pods down to a planetary surface from the ''Endurance. Rangers can efficiently cruise through a planetary atmosphere and use chemical/plasma aerospike engines to achieve single-stage-to-orbit. Landers uses similar engines but are more derived from the bell shaped main engines of the Endurance. Each craft is efficient and powerful enough to achieve orbit multiple times. 2008 script In the original script, Cooper was able to trace the origin of a crashed drone to a NASA facility on Santa Cruz Island. They rocket to enter Low-Earth orbit, where the Endurance awaited, docked to a space station. The Endurance was a decades old spacecraft maintained by a crew of androids. The craft had a similar ring-like shape, but was able to extend or decrease its diameter in order to "sink" into the wormhole. Trivia The Endurance is presumably named for Ernest Shackleton's ship that was bound for Antarctica, attempting to cross on foot to the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In the docking scene where Coop is trying to dock with the partly damaged Endurance after Dr. Mann's demise, the Endurance is spinning around its center axis. As its perimeter was damaged, it would spin around its rather new center of mass.The docking bay itself would revolve around this new axis, making alignment much harder.